Don’t Be Afraid to Step Out

Facing Opposition

Peter faced this dilemma when God gave him the vision of
the sheet with all its unclean contents and told him, “‘Rise, Peter;
kill and eat’” (Acts 10:13, NKJV). Peter understood from the vision that
his own plan to reach the Jews with the gospel was not the fullness of
God’s plan for the extension of His kingdom and that God wanted him to
go to the Gentiles. He determined that his business was to follow the
Lord’s directions in spite of his own “ifs” and “buts,” and he went on
to carry out the divine direction.

The church, aghast, as usual, at anything new, was down on
it. This new church—which had only just itself been brought to God by a
new Savior, a new revelation, a new call and a new faith—was down on
Peter and summoned him before a council to answer for his conduct (see
Acts 11:1-3).

He told them about his vision in the truthful simplicity
of a man of God, and thank God, they had sense enough—yes, and love
enough—to accept his explanations and to glorify God (vv. 4-18). Would
to God we could get as much sense and charity these days!

You see, the church tends to be down on all the Peters who
dare to do anything out of the jog-trot line. You may reason ever so
urgently and show them that the old measures are not enough for
everybody, that there is a great mass of outlying population that they
do not reach; you may show them that these new measures of yours are
quite as lawful as their old measures, and that, probably, they would be
a great deal more useful, and moreover, that they have been borne in
upon you by the Holy Spirit and that you feel as if there is a fire in
your bones urging you to go and try them; yet they will not hold their
peace and glorify God but will loose their tongues and vilify you.

I wish people would stop and think that the path they are
now standing in—the well-beaten track on which they are now walking with
such slow dignity—was once quite as new and unconventional and
outrageous to their forefathers’ colleagues as the path that any new
departure by the Holy Spirit may set before them now. They should read
Neale’s History of the Puritans and see amid what a hurricane of
excitement, opposition, contempt and persecution their forefathers
fought for the very paths they are now standing still in and holding so
sacred that they cannot have them disturbed.

If their forefathers had acted on the principles they are
acting on, they would have stood still in old paths, and we would never
have been in the new ones. These people stand in the paths of
traditionalism and routinism, just where their forefathers left them,
occupying all their time in admiring the wisdom and benevolence and
devotion of their forefathers, instead of imitating their aggressive
faith and marching on to the conquest of the world.

Will you throw yourself in with them? Or will you step out
in front of the crowd and lead them down the path of true
righteousness? For which is better: to let men be damned conventionally
or to save them unconventionally?

Which is the most God-honoring? Which has the most common sense in it?

But it is now as it was in the days of the Son of Man—the
church is full of those who “‘build the tombs of the prophets and adorn
the monuments of the righteous, and say, “If we had lived in the days of
our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of
the prophets”’” (Matt. 23:29-30). Jesus called such religious folk
“hypocrites” (v. 29) and “serpents, brood of vipers” (v. 33) and said
that they are “‘witnesses against [them]selves that [they] are sons of
those who murdered the prophets’” (Matt. 23:29-31).

Motivated by Love

How is this pharisaical attitude played out in the church
today? Let’s take an illustration. Suppose we have a church that is
going comfortably along and is just where it was 10 or 15 years ago,
making up for deaths and departures, but not really growing.

We will suppose that a member of this church gets
converted. He has the sense of his transgressions and unfaithfulness
being taken away, and the joy of God’s salvation is restored to his
soul.

Now, in a moment—almost immediately, as in the case of
Peter—as soon as the internal work is done, comes the external path
opened up. The Spirit of God lays before him some new work, something
strikes him that has been long forgotten or that never seems to have
been recognized in his church.

He sees what a grand thing it would be for the conversion
of souls and the extension of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and he feels
it beginning to burn like a fire in his bones to enter this path of
usefulness. He prays much over it and waits until he is fully satisfied
that it is not a vain impulse but is of the Spirit of God.

Full of love, faith and zeal, he goes to talk to the
leadership. He expects they will sympathize with his feelings and enter
into his project; but alas, they begin by raising objections: “Well, but
you see, that would be a little out of our order”; or “That is not
exactly our way of doing things”; or “I am afraid the deacons would
object.” And if he has the misfortune to be young—or a woman—they will
completely suppress him with the dictate, “You must never presume to do
anything of which we do not approve.”

Alas! The thousands of urgings of the Holy Spirit; the
thousands of heavenly voices that have been as clear to human souls as
ever Peter’s sheet was to him; the thousands of glorious aspirations and
schemes for the spread of the kingdom that have been thus squashed!

But not all souls will be so easily put off. The possessor
of divine love holds out, in spite of opposition, ingratitude and
persecution. He seeks the good of all men, not merely because he ought
but because he cannot help it. His heart is on the side of God and
truth. He loves righteousness and therefore cannot desist from seeking
to bring all beings to love it, too, although they hate and despise him
for so doing.

Jesus held out in this glorious love, even in the agonies
of crucifixion. “‘Father, forgive them,’” He said, “‘for they do not
know what they do’” (Luke 23:34). His heart was set on bringing man back
to God, and He went through with it. His soul did not draw back, and
His divine love constrained Him even unto death.

Do you have this divine love? Do you have enough of it to
take you beyond your petty, selfish interests and your concerns about
what other people will think to a place in front of the pack? Will you
step out, all alone, and become a forerunner in your generation? If you
do—if you will—you may be surprised at the revival God begins through
you.

Catherine Booth (1829-1890) was co-founder with her
husband, William, of The Salvation Army, as well as the mother of nine
children and a much-sought-after, powerful preacher. Adapted from Papers on Godliness by Catherine Booth, copyright © 1881. Reprinted in 1986 by The Salvation Army Supplies and Purchasing Department.